Will wonders never cease? Mickey Rourke enjoyed a career resurrection in 2005.

Sin City Grabs the Year's
Top Honor

Sin
City: Robert Rodriguez’s stylish
adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novels is the best film of the year,
and not simply for its breathtaking effects, brilliant cinematography or
the inspired casting of baby-faced Elijah Wood as a deranged cannibal. Sin
City is a landmark achievement, a seamless transition from the
page to the screen that renders Miller’s shadowy red-light districts and
whiskey-breathed anti-heroes the ultimate guilty pleasure.

Capote: He probably won’t take home the Best Actor
Oscar at this year’s Academy Awards – smart money has that honor earmarked
for BrokebackMountain’s
Heath Ledger – but nobody delivered a stronger performance last year than
Philip Seymour Hoffman as Truman Capote, the calculating, conflicted and
flamboyant author who traveled into the heart of the rural Midwest to
investigate the slaughter of a Kansas family. The trip produced In
Cold Blood, one of the groundbreaking
non-fiction works of the 20th century, but it left Capote emotionally and
spiritually spent. Hoffman depicts the breakdown masterfully, without ever
losing sight of his character’s dark side.

Syriana: Director Stephen Gaghan’s sophomore effort is
a tense, labyrinthine indictment of American foreign policy in the Middle
East and the lengths to which Washington insiders will go to secure
U.S.-friendly oil contracts. If it seems confusing, with its myriad
subplots and overwhelming cast of scheming politicos, that’s
understandable: Syriana exists in a deceptive world
of
back-room deals and betrayals, where nothing is ever as it seems, either
to the characters or the audience.

The
Constant Gardener: Another
timely political
drama, this time based on a John le Carré bestseller about corrupt healthcare
providers in Northern Kenya who will stop at nothing to promote a dangerous new
wonder-drug. Like Syriana, it’s a
biting indictment of a system driven by corrupt corporate interests, but Constant
Gardener is more than just
a savvy polemic. It’s the
story of a man, heartbroken by the murder of his wife and driven by rage to
expose the dirty secrets of her killers. That he succeeds, and pays the
ultimate price for his success, is what makes the movie both tragic and,
finally, a rousing triumph.

Hustle
& Flow: James Brown may be the
Hardest Working Man in Show Business, but he had nothing on Terrence
Howard in 2005. After more than a decade of tearing through bit parts in
forgettable fare like Biker Boyz and Big Momma’s House, Howard enjoyed a big-time breakthrough,
complementing supporting roles in Four Brothers, Crash and Get Rich or Die Tryin’ with a star-making
turn in Hustle & Flow. The movie,
about an ambitious pimp desperate
to break into the hip-hop game, offers an unflinching portrait of
hard-edged poverty, but it doubles as an inspiring underdog story, and has a gritty authenticity that even 50 Cent’s
biopic fails to match.

Walk
the Line: Taking a cue from Jamie
Foxx in Ray, Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon
not only
act the parts of Johnny Cash and June Carter, but sing the couple’s
classic duets as well. Remarkably, the results are pitch-perfect, and the
story of Cash’s drug-addled rise to superstardom is more than strong
enough to provide a worthy framework for their virtuoso performances.

Kiss
Kiss, Bang Bang: Shane Black, whose
formidable screenwriting credits include Lethal Weapon
and The
Last Boy Scout, deftly jumps into the
directorial game with Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang,
a delicious slice of pulp that should satisfy
even the pickiest Tarantino fans while the master is off trashing the
eastern European hostel industry. Energized by brilliant chemistry between
co-stars Val Kilmer and Robert Downey Jr., it’s a heady, quick-witted trip
through Black’s favorite haunt – the seedy, seductive Hollywood
underworld, in which the stars aren’t so far removed from the killers they
play on TV.

Millions: Shallow Grave. Trainspotting. The Beach. Millions? Yes,
Danny Boyle does family films that are every bit as clever and
affecting as his racier fare, as proven by this overlooked gem, in which
two boys (Alex Etel and Lewis Owen McGibbon, delivering eye-opening
performances) discover stolen treasure and embark on a charitable crusade.

Serenity: Joss Whedon’s short-lived Firefly
series may have suffered an untimely demise at the hands of FOX network
executives, but even Rupert Murdoch couldn’t stop the signal. As luck
would have it, Universal picked up the tab for Serenity, a big-screen adventure that finds Whedon’s
posse of cheerfully subversive space cowboys fighting a Big Brother-like
parliament and an army of flesh-eating mutants. Sound silly? It is, and
thanks to a sharp-witted script, refreshingly minimalist effects and smart
alecky leading man Nathan Fillion, it’s the most enthralling sci-fi
fantasy since Starship Troopers.

The
Devil’s Rejects: Yes, it’s sick,
depraved, repulsive… and, in its own twisted way, one of the most brutally
effective horror films since 1974’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
And that’s no accident – director Rob Zombie has spent the better part of
the last five years crafting the ultimate throwback to the nightmarish,
no-frills terror inspired by ’70s filmmakers like Tobe Hooper and Wes Craven. After debuting with the wildly uneven
House
of 1000 Corpses, Zombie has finally
found his voice. Who knew it would be worth listening to?